Tony White

I have always found the area of social engineering a most interesting subject of study. When humans use the law to attempt to make people behave in certain ways. It is a very perilous task indeed, especially when they are trying to curb or modify basic human drives.

The most obvious example of this is the sex drive. Governments throughout history have tried to legislate on who can breed with who and it just does not work. Apartheid tried it, the Nazis tried it and it just does not work. Thank heavens for that. Imagine what we would be like now if governments discovered that they could actually make such laws that were effective in that way. Of course this has a downside to it as well and that relates to child sexual abuse. Such laws are just not much help in this area. They are good laws to have but one must be realistic about them. You can’t make laws that attempt control the human sex drive and expect those laws to be particularly effective.

 

I recall many years ago when I was studying anthropology in university and it was stated that every society ever studied always had a significant proportion of its members who used some kind of mood altering substance. Lets face it, humans like getting stoned in some way. Weather that be hallucinogens, stimulants like nicotine, opiates, alcohol and of course marijuana has a very long history of use in many, many societies.

So when governments try to curb this basic human motivation by using the law one needs to be realistic about how effective they are going to be. And with such social engineering there are always side effects that pop up like black markets and so forth.

In one of today’s newspapers (West Australian) there was a long article by Karl O’Callaghan who is the Police Commissioner or the top cop in the state where I live. He was noting the apparent success of alcohol restrictions in very remote aboriginal communities. A decrease in violence and alcohol related accidents and so forth.

 

The actual cause of decrease is a matter of some debate but he does note that children and women are better off and there seems to be less alcoholism. That does indeed seem to be a safe conclusion and a very good one. There is however one point that he fails to mention.

I can cure a person of alcoholism easily. A guaranteed cure using geographical therapy. You simply place the person on a desert island that has no alcohol. Alcoholism solved as the person can not drink. There is just one problem. For it to work long term the person is in essence imprisoned. They can’t get off the island.

Karl O’Callaghan is promoting a similar policy of aboriginal imprisonment. These remote communities are in essence islands because the distance to other communities is difficult to traverse. To remove access to alcohol from them is in essence imprisoning these aborigines on their alcohol free desert island. They can’t leave. If they do leave and go to another community or town in Australia then they will be confronted with every possible type of alcohol known to modern man available to them 365 days per year. What will they do then? To answer this question one needs to look at what happened last time.

 

250 years ago the aborigines did indeed live on an alcohol free desert island called Australia. As a result there was no alcoholism. Then one day the British decided to go for a bit of a sail in their boats and eventually landed on the shores of “Terra Australis” as it was known then. They also brought along with them their barrels of rum. Eventually the aborigines gained access to this rum and 250 years later we are where we are now.

The social policies promoted by Karl O’Callaghan in the newspaper of today create the same situation. It imprisons the aborigines on their alcohol free desert islands. They can’t leave. If they leave one can assume the same will happen that happened 250 years ago. They start drinking or at least a portion of them will.

 

Social engineering in action. One solves the alcoholism by yet another period of aboriginal imprisonment. This then of course creates a new aboriginal underclass. Because they can’t leave and because they are in very isolated areas they can only ever have a small impact on the politics and commerce of this country. Social engineering in action. The creation of a new aboriginal underclass because they are imprisoned in the deserts of Australia.

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